NBA Communications

Record-breaking year for merchandise, NBA League Pass and social media

Official Release |

April 12, 2018

NEW YORK – The NBA set all-time records for total attendance, average attendance and sellouts during the 2017-18 season. For the fourth consecutive season, the league established a new record for total attendance, surpassing the 22 million mark for the first time, with 22,124,559 fans attending games this past regular season. This year eclipsed last year’s record of 21,997,412 fans.

Additionally, the NBA established a new regular-season record for average attendance (17,987), surpassing the previous high established last year (17,884). This year marked the first season that league attendance was at least 95 percent or more of arena capacity.

The 2017-18 regular season also set a new sellout record (741), exceeding the previous mark (723) which was achieved during the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons.

Highest NBA Regular-Season Total Attendances All-Time

2017-18 22,124,559

2016-17 21,997,412

2015-16 21,972,129

2014-15 21,926,548

2006-07 21,841,480

Highest NBA Regular-Season Average Attendances All-Time

2017-18 17,987

2016-17 17,884

2015-16 17,864

2014-15 17,826

2006-07 17,757

Other highlights from the regular season include:

MERCHANDISE: NBAStore.com established a new record this season with overall sales up 25 percent over the 2016-17 season.

NBA LEAGUE PASS: NBA League Pass set a record for worldwide digital subscriptions, up 63 percent over last season, after introducing new features this year including in-arena coverage during all breaks, a new season long virtual reality subscription package, monthly pricing options and Spanish-language video for select games.

SOCIAL MEDIA: The league established new records across social media this season for actions (+25%, 808 million) and video views (+43%, 11 billion). Since the end of the 2016-17 regular season, 8.7 million new followers have joined the NBA’s social media community – a nine percent increase. Overall, the league has more than 1.5 billion likes and followers combined across all league, team, and player social platforms worldwide. LeBron James is the most-followed American athlete on social media with over 100M followers combined across Facebook (23 million), Twitter (41 million) and Instagram (36 million).

The 2018 NBA Playoffs tip off Saturday, April 14, with 16 teams competing for a trip to the NBA Finals presented by YouTube TV and the chance to win The Larry O’Brien Trophy.